BJP can lose 50 seats in 2024 LS polls: Shashi Tharoor predicts

"If the BJP is at 250 and the others are at 290... will those 290 agree or would the BJP be able to pick 20 here and 10 there from parties that want favours from the central government of the day and then form the government," Tharoor.

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 14: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who lost to Mallikarjun Kharge in Congress presidential poll a few months ago, has said that the BJP will lose 50 seats in the next Lok Sabha polls which will be held in 2024.

The outspoken leader has said that it was impossible for the BJP to replicate its 2019 electoral triumph in 2024. "If you look at how well they (the BJP) did in 2019, they have essentially had every seat in Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan; or all but one seat in Bihar, MP (Madhya Pradesh), Maharashtra; and 18 seats in Bengal. Now, all of those results are impossible to replicate and the BJP dropping below the majority in 2024 is entirely possible," PTI quoted him as saying at a literature festival in Kerala.

The 66-year-old politician termed the Pulwama attacks and the Balakot strike led to a "tremendous wave" at the last minute and that "freak" won't be repeated in 2024, he added. A drop of 50 seats for the BJP and gain for the opposition parties is entirely "conceivable".

On asking whether the opposition parties can unite in such situation to keep the BJP out of power, he said it was "impossible to answer". "If the BJP is at 250 and the others are at 290... will those 290 agree or would the BJP be able to pick 20 here and 10 there from parties that want favours from the central government of the day and then form the government. We don't know," he stated.

The BJP had emerged victorious in 303 seats out of 543 in 2019 Lok Sabha while the Congress was reduced to 52 seats.

Talking about dynasticism in a democracy , the Thiruvananthapuram MP said that those singling out his party should also look around the country. He argued that with the sole exception of the "Communists and the BJP", ironically on the polar end of the political spectrum, every party seems to have dynastic politics.

"When we point the finger and say the 'Congress dynasty'... you look around the country and what you see Mulayam Singh (Yadav) is succeeded by his son, Lalu Prasad Yadav is succeeded by his son, Karunanidhi is succeeded by his son, Bal Thackeray is succeeded by his son, Sharad Pawar... he is very much there but his heir apparent is his daughter and his nephew," he added.

With inputs from PTI